The last French Revolution broke out in February, 1848.  The Czar hates republics,—­name and thing; but he did not interfere against the France of Lamartine, any more than against the France of Louis Philippe in 1830.  Why not?  He dared not.  But he resorted to his natural and his most dangerous weapon, secret diplomacy.  He sent male and female intriguers to Paris, and succeeded in turning the revolution into a mock republic.  But from the pulsations of the great French heart every tyrant had trembled.  The German nation took its destiny into its own hands, and proposed to itself to become ONE, in Frankfort.  The throne in Berlin quaked; the Austrian emperor fled from his palace, a few weeks after he had with his own hands waved the flag of freedom out of his window.  In Vienna an Austrian Parliament met.  A constitution was devised for Polish Gallicia, linked by blood, history, and nature, to the Poland domineered over by the Czar; while on its western frontier another Polish province, Posen, was wrapt in revolutionary flames.  You can imagine how the Czar raged, how he wished to unite all mankind in one head, so that he might cut it off with a single blow; and still he nowhere interfered.  Why not?  Again I say, he was prudently afraid.  However, the French republic became very innocent to him—­almost an ally in some respects, really an ally in others, as in the case of unfortunate Rome.  The gentlemen of Frankfort proved also to be very innocent.  The hopes of Germany failed—­the people were shot down in Vienna, Prague, Lemberg,—­the Austrian mock Parliament was sent from Vienna to Kremsen, and from Kremsen home.  Only Hungary stood firm, steady, victorious—­the Czar had nothing more to fear from all revolutionary Europe—­nothing from Germany—­nothing from France.  He had no fear from the United States, since he knew that your government then was not willing to meddle with European affairs:  so he had free hands in Hungary.  But one thing still he did not know, and that was—­what will England and what will Turkey say, if he interferes?—­and that consideration alone was sufficient to check him.  So anxious was he to feel the pulse of England and of Turkey, that he sent first a small army—­some ten thousand men—­to help the Austrians in Transylvania; and sent them in such a manner as to have, in case of need, for excuse, that he was called to do so, not by Austria only, but by that part of the people also, which deceived by foul delusion, stood by Austria! Oh, it was an infernal plot!  We beat down and drove out his 10,000 men, together with all the Austrians—­but the Czar had won his game.  He was hereby assured that he would have no foreign power to oppose him when he dared to violate the law of nations by an armed interference in Hungary.  So he interfered with all his might.